Looking for a Challenger

Grambling, La., is a sleepy Negro town in the heart of the peapatch and catfish country. The best way to get there is by car from Shreveport, over a highway that is partly pitted blacktop, built by Huey Long in the 1930s. But there is not much point in making the trip--unless, of course, you happen to be an athlete. Grambling is the home of Grambling College, a state-operated school with only 3,700 students, half of them girls, and year after year some of the best college football players in the nation. At last count, 17 Grambling alumni were playing with the pros, including All-Pro Safety Man Roosevelt Taylor of the Chicago Bears, 315-lb. Tackle Ernie Ladd of the San Diego Chargers, and End Willie Davis of the Green Bay Packers.

Football is fine, but track is even finer. It is newer, too. Grambling had neither a track nor a team until five years ago. What's more, Track Coach Tom Williams, a onetime halfback with the Los Angeles Rams, gets only ten athletic scholarships a year. But he makes the most of what he has. Williams can field nine runners capable of cracking 10 sec. in the 100-yd. dash, a 174-ft. discus thrower, a 26-ft. broad jumper --and the best sprint relay team in the U.S.

Say "Hey!" This season, four Californians dressed in Grambling black-and-gold have run off with practically every sprint relay in sight, and their times (40 sec. for the 440, 1 min. 23.3 sec. for the 880) are the fastest in the U.S. Last week, at the Southwestern Athletic Conference meet in Houston, they romped to yet another 440-yd. victory, in 40.4 sec. Better still, they have only begun to hit their stride. Donald Owens is only a junior, but he is the captain of the team. The others--Richard Stebbins, Vernus Ragsdale and Donald Meadows--are all sophomores running in their second varsity season.

Key to the sprint relay is the baton pass--a complicated maneuver that must be accomplished blindly but precisely. Grambling's Coach Williams learned the secret from the British. Impressed by the fact that the British national team had beaten the U.S. in international competition, Williams studied movies of the teams in action. The Americans were faster, but they tended to slow down for the tricky pass, while the British made the transfer at full speed. The Americans also had a habit of waiting, hand low, palm down, trying to snatch the baton from their teammates. The British on the other hand, reached back, hand high, thumb up-and the incoming runner simply dropped the baton into his teammate's open palm.

Williams decided to crossbreed the two styles. His runners hold their hands palm down, in the classic American style, but the incoming runner slaps the baton upward into his teammate's palm, alerting him just before the pass by shouting "Hey!" In the 440-yd. relay, where even a fraction of a second is important, Williams staggers the passing points so that Stebbins and Ragsdale, the two fastest men, get to run 10 yds. farther than Meadows and Owens.

Stayers & Anchors. Most coaches simply run their fastest man as anchor and their second fastest as No. 1, but Williams tries to fit each boy's personality to the leg he is assigned. Meadows is no speedball, but he is a stayer: he can match almost anybody for 110 or 220 yds.--so Williams runs him as the No. 1 man. Stebbins and Ragsdale are both convinced that they are the fastest sprinters in the country, so they run No. 2 and No. 3. Their job is to build up a lead for Anchor Man Owens, who runs best when he starts in front.

The closest anybody has come to beating Grambling in the 440-or 880-yd. relay all year is .3 sec. back at the tape. That makes Williams proud but unhappy. "These boys need a challenge," he says. "They have never yet been in a race where they all had to put out their best effort." If that ever does happen, officials are unlikely to believe their watches. Meadows already has clocked 21.2 sec. for a 220 leg this year; Owens has done 20.2 sec., Stebbins 20 sec. and Ragsdale a fantastic 19.5. Together, those times add up to 1 min. 20.9 sec. --almost two full seconds faster than the world record for the 880-yd. relay.

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